Half Of All Refugees To U.s. Are Dependent On Welfare

WASHINGTON — More than half the refugees admitted to the United States end up on welfare rolls, an official from the Health and Human Services Department told Congress on Friday.

Phillip Hawkes, deputy director of the HHS Family Support Administration, said that 55.4 percent of refugees who have been in the United States for less than three years are on welfare. He made his comments at Senate subcommittee hearings on what effect the Gramm-Rudman budget-cutting law was having on refugee programs.

California leads the nation with 90 percent of such refugees receiving welfare benefits, he said. When Congress passed the Refugee Act of 1980, Hawkes said, the goal was for the federal government to pay for transitional assistance while refugees settled and found employment.

''Most believed that refugees would make limited use of income and medical assistance programs, find work, and enter the economic mainstream,'' he said. But over the past six years, the ''single largest problem'' of the refugee program has been the high percentage on public assistance, he said. Many move to states with higher than average welfare benefits, Hawkes said.

Their dependence on welfare, he said, does not appear to be related to the availability of jobs.